Abilene

Abilene is a nationwide, high speed, Internet Protocol (IP), research and education network created by collaboration among Qwest^®, Cisco^®, Juniper Networks^TM, Nortel Networks^®, Indiana University and Internet2^®. Abilene runs on over 10,000 miles of the Qwest nationwide Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) backbone, and Qwest provides facilities and engineering support for the Abilene Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructure. The contributions of Qwest and these dedicated Corporate Partners have resulted in the creation and successful operation of a backbone network with an estimated value of approximately $500 million.

The Abilene backbone network is currently undergoing a complete upgrade to the latest optical and routing technology. The nationwide upgrade will quadruple Abilene's capacity to 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) and natively deploy the next generation Internet protocol, IPv6, using Qwest Communications' nationwide network infrastructure. The upgrade will maintain Abilene's position as one of the most advanced and far-reaching education and research networks in the world.

The predominant Internet2 backbone network, Abilene is utilized by leading universities in all fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Over 200 U.S. universities take advantage of Abilene to collaborate on such diverse advanced applications as tele-immersion, virtual laboratories, distance learning, distributed performing arts, tele-medicine, grid computing and digital libraries.

Strategic alliances with Internet2 universities and regional networking organizations provide state education networks - including elementary and secondary schools, community colleges, smaller universities, libraries and museums - with access to the national high-performance network. These state education networks utilize Abilene through sponsorship by a university member of Internet2; they actually connect to Abilene via their sponsor.

Abilene supports advanced Internet services and experimentation in areas such as multicast and broadcast of high quality video and audio, Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) which is the next generation Internet protocol, Quality of Service (QoS), content storage and distribution, and end-to-end performance measurement.

Abilene also provides a wealth of bandwidth to the U.S. education community. The backbone currently runs at 2.4 gigabits per second (Gbps), that's 2.4 billion bits per second, a speed 45,000 times faster than a 56K (kilobits per second) dial-up modem connection. When the backbone upgrade is completely, Abilene will be running at 10 Gbps, 180,000 times faster than a dial-up modem connection. And even better, Abilene supports direct connections by universities and regional networks also at speeds up to 2.4 Gbps -- and soon at 10 Gbps -- allowing for experimental applications not possible on today's Internet.

Qwest is proud to make Abilene possible!

View a map of the Abilene network.

See what's happening real-time on the Abilene network operations center (NOC) site!